Page 25 of Wicked Cowboy
We walk into the barn, and I fall in love with his horse, Teddy. I strike up a conversation with him, asking how long he’s lived on the ranch and what his favorite treat is.
“You always talk to animals?” he asks, amused.
“To the sweet ones,” I say as Teddy snuggles into my shoulder. “Sometimes they listen better than people.”
“I agree.”
I take a deep breath and say, “I should get my car looked at,” I say. “Find out if it forgives me for assault with a pumpkin.”
“Your car’s ready to go. Luke and I fixed it the first day you were here.”
I nod, try to keep my voice casual. “Right, then I will get out of your way and head to the retreat. There are still a few more days.”
I can’t gauge his reaction as I watch him through my lashes. “Unless, you know, the roads are dangerous. The map is cursed. Or the fog machine eats towns now.”
“Roads are clear.” He says it gently.
After what happened the night before, I thought he would be asking me to stay instead of acting so cold. “Fine. I’ll go learn how to be my highest witchy self or whatever it is we’re doing. Probably there will be tea.”
“And chanting.”
“We discussed this. I only hex exes.”
He huffs. “Noted.”
“Rhett,” I say, then stop, because sometimes names are sentences.
“Frankie,” he answers, and his mouth softens by a millimeter again.
“What are we doing?” I finally ask, not afraid of sounding like a woman whose heart could break at any moment.
He looks down at his hands, at the palm with the pale scar I keep wanting to trace. “I don’t know.”
“Same.”
We sit together in silence until a truck turns up the drive. It’s loud, cheerful, unmistakably not from here. The truck is teal and sparkly with a glittering decal on the back window:Witchy Women Weekend.
“Oh God,” I whisper, torn between laughter and horror. “They found me.”
“They?” he echoes.
“My friends.” I slide off the rail and brush my hands on my thighs. I had texted them that I was fine and that there was no reason to worry about my absence from the retreat. They may have tracked me down somehow.
Rhett straightens too, eyes flicking briefly toward the truck and then back to me. I read worry there, and maybe something like bracing. “You want to meet them out front?”
“Better than letting Luke do it,” I say, and we start back across the field.
By the time we reach the yard, the chaos has spilled out onto the gravel like glitter. Willow is in a mustard coat, hair a riot, filming a vertical video introducing “Brush Creek Ranch: where our girl Frankie is currently hiding.” Tasha, cool, composed, and lethal in sunglasses, carries a tray of fancy coffees like a benevolent caffeine fairy. Jade, who once convinced me to buy a cauldron-shaped humidifier, is hugging Martha and trying to set a date to adopt her.
“FRANKIE!” Willow barrels into me with the force of a small, excited dog. “You disappeared like a legend. We thought someone kidnapped you or that you were hooking up with some man.”
“Hi to you too,” I say, laughing even as I wince at the volume. “Please stop yelling at me.”
“He’s hot. Does he have any brothers?” Jade asks while looking over at Rhett.
Tasha takes me in —the flannel, the boots, the fact that I am definitely glowing —and lifts one brow behind her sunglasses. “We brought croissants. And an intervention.”
Martha beams, delighted. “Bless you, girls. Come inside before this wind knocks you all over.” Rhett hovers a few steps back, polite, careful, the gentleman version of a retreat. The women clock him at once. It’s impossible not to. He’s tall and steady, hat shading his eyes, jaw rough with a morning that began before sunrise.